


Hallowed Ale

by duointherain



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bar, Gen, Necromancers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 00:46:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13869498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duointherain/pseuds/duointherain
Summary: Stephen is investigating an oddly disturbing bar in a small town.  It's probably nothing. He could be wrong. There's a first time for everything.It's not like Loki was hiding out from an angry 2000 year old Russian necromancer, or anything.





	Hallowed Ale

The Hallowed Ale

by Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own any part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I own no gods. I also make no guarantee of canon nor habitability. 

 

Note: This is set sometime after Ragnarok. 

 

The bar was nowhere, almost literally. Stephen stood outside of it, hands shoved down into a thick sweater, the collar of which was folded up to his ears. Indecision rarely lingered so long and that alone was interesting. So there he stood, nearly as un-noticeable as the thick lazy fog lying about on the street. 

He ran his tongue over his teeth, as he stared at the place. It was the place that felt off, that he’d felt pull him. He felt nothing now, of course. Frustrated, he rubbed his temples, and considered that he could just be being jumpy. There was always the idea that it’s better to jump at a tiger in the grass that isn’t there, then to miss one that was there.

This place was so ordinary and unloved that he wasn’t sure it could hold magic if he poured it full. The windows were covered over with beer posters, but not in any kind of neat way, more like some haphazard adventure to keep the light away from someone’s hangover. The door was more of the same. A bit of neon did leak out the edges so there was something inside this pit. Granted it was late, the paint on the building was of some bland brain on a slide grey that Stephen wasn’t he even had a name for. 

Just when he was sure, he’d made a mistake, which was alarming in and of itself, enough that he’d really need to research just exactly where he’d started to make the mistake, just when he was ready to give up, the door to this bland viper pit opened and pretty woman with pale blue skin and dark blue eyes. Her hair was darker, but still blue as it curled against smooth skin. 

“Will you please come in? You’re scaring away my customers.” She stepped to the side, letting the light highlights on her curves, tight and uplifting curves. She gestured impatiently. 

The moment he knew he was going inside, the hair stood up on the back of his neck.

Levi chose that moment to be tired of being a sweater, instead clinging to him, trying to pull him backwards. 

“Yes, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said, as much for his cloak as himself. As he crossed the threshold, he asked, “Just what manner of place is this, exactly?”  


“It’s a bar,” the woman said, head tilted, blue eyes wide like the weight of her expression should make him feel badly about himself for asking. 

He must have scared a lot of customers away because there were only empty chairs and stale beer in the place. It felt like magic, and yet, not like magic. The inbetweenness of it made his nerves twitch. He sat down on a stool at the bar and watched her wipe glasses for a few minutes. 

She seemed oddly familiar. He couldn’t imagine a person being much closer to the ideal of feminine beauty, yet somehow more like Medusa than Venus. “Indeed. It is a bar. Have you seen anything,” he paused, feeling very strongly that he knew her, “well, anything unusual?”

Well, there was a blueness to her skin, but it was very faint and she was young. It was more likely to be some form of new make up, like when all the kids had dyed their hair blue and green, rather than it being, rather than her being some form of alien. 

With a loud klink she set a pint glass in front of him. “You mean aside from you standing by my front door for hours looking like a creeper of some kind? No.”

“I most definitely am not a creeper,” he said. “I’m Dr. Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts.”

“You put that on a business card, do you?” She held up two bottles of ale, one that was with honey, the other that had green tea in it. “If you’re going to sit here, you have to drink. Ten bux a bottle. Which one do you want?”

“You seem so very familiar.” He pointed to the beer with green tea, though he wasn’t very hopeful for it. “Have we met before?” 

She licked her lip, soft and full, glossed like sapphire and at least two seconds, he found it impossible to look away. She did have very nice lips. “I’m sure I’d remember an old creeper like you.”

“I am not old!” He scowled, one eyebrow arching as he scoured his memory for her. 

“But you are a creeper.” She set the poured beer down in front of him. “Ten dollar.” 

He gestured and a ten dollar bill appeared between his fingers. “I’m only buying one.” 

“Better make it last then. So what brings you to Forks?”

She may have pressed her arms against her breasts to lift them, or something. Stephen wasn’t completely sure why anyone would do such a thing. When she turned her back, he magic’ed away a couple drinks of beer. He wasn’t sure she wasn’t one of the fae. Maybe. She really did have an odd magical energy, so subtle and hard to think about because everytime he tried, his mind went to her curves, lips or hips, the dark black liner highlighting her eyes, but there was always something that shifted his mind from her magical signature. 

Then he got it, just like a bad taste in one’s mouth from too much antacid, when nothing but time would cut it. “Why are you here,” he asked, addressing who he suspected the woman actually was. 

She turned though, face twisting up for just a moment. The shifty way her eyes looked anywhere other than in his direction only seemed to confirm her true identity. She held up a finger to proceed a rather smarmy lecture. “I am running a bar Mr. Magic Arts. You know, a real job? Taking care of people, minding my own business, staying out of trouble.”

“Uh, uh,” Stephen said, fingers pulling together the glowing edges of spell he was about to throw.

She had both fingers up then, her voice dropping a bit, more masculine, more urgent and genuine. “You don’t want to do that. You really don’t. There are reasons.”

“There always are,” Stephen said before blowing the shimmering silver spell like a kiss. 

She held up her arms to block it, but she burst like a balloon of glitter and in her place stood a dark haired man with blue eyes and a sour expression. 

Stephen smirked victoriously. “Hello, Loki. Have we not discussed how you’re not getting a visitor’s permit for Earth.”

“Yeah,” Loki said, holding his hands out like he was ready to be arrested. “You should totally arrest me! Take me back to your house. Your house is particularly secure, impossible to penetrate those defenses?”

“What have you done?”

The door opened, hit the wall, and exploded back in a shower of safety glass. 

“Loki! I have found you!” The new man roared, his thick black boots grinding glass. “I’m going to rip your heart from your chest!”

“Are you going to let him do that,” Loki asked, eyes wide and as innocent as watered down vodka. “Thor won’t take it well if you let me get killed!”

Stephen stroked his chin. “I’m pretty good with words. I’ll do my best to explain it to him.”

“No, no,” Loki said, scurrying around the bar to put Stephen between him and angry pale man drawing a rather long sword. “See, you can’t let him hurt me. He’s a necromancer and he is only angry at me because I freed one of his slaves. He wants to kill me and make me a replacement!”

Stephen turned to look at the man. Impressive looking man, dark eyes, snow white skin, long black hair, and a mantle of black wolf fur over his shoulders. The magic coming from him was odd, and perhaps a bit too warm to be necromancy. “Well, is what he says true?”

“He killed my wife! We shared our lives for nearly two thousand years! I’m going to kill him and bring him back as the lowest of the low and make him beg me to return his heart for ten thousand years!”

“That sounds very, very intense,” Stephen said, looking back at Loki, “Well? Did you kill his wife?”

“It was a bet! She entered combat willingly!”

“You didn’t disclose you were a god, you lying, shit licking worthless leech! How could that have been a fair fight?”

Stephen gave Loki a stern and condemning look. “He’s not wrong about your nature.” 

Loki pressed both hands over his heart, eyes cast heavenward. “I’m reformed! Have I not lived peacefully here, tending this mild bar for nearly two years?”

The necromancer aimed his sword at Loki. “Hiding like the worthless shit stain that you are!”

Loki pointed over Stephen’s shoulder. “You welched on the bet. I won fair and square!” 

“How do you figure? You didn’t tell us you were a fucking god?”

Loki looked so innocent, so well meaning. “You’re a great and powerful necromancer who has lived for thousands of years. I expect you to know these things I didn’t want to insult you by telling you the obvious!” 

“I’m going to crucify you! Have you ever been crucified? I can make it take a century to kill you!” 

With a great sigh, and a slight slump to his shoulders, Stephen stared at the necromancer. “I can’t actually let you kill him. I am a doctor. Perhaps I can help you with your wife, in exchange for not killing my prisoner, who I will personally see escorted back to Asgard and the custody of his brother.” 

The big man covered his face with a huge hand and then drove his sword into the concrete of the floor. “She doesn’t need a doctor. She’s been dead for a very long time. That VERMIN cast a spell on her that turned her to sand.”

“Oh oh,” Stephen said. “I have heard of that. Give me a moment.” While still looking at the necromancer, he cast a golden net on Loki, pinning him fairly uncomfortably to the bar. “He’s not going anywhere, so may I have just a moment to see if I can counter the spell?”

“I am Lubov.” 

“I’m not running away anymore,” Loki said, face pressed into a bowl of peanuts. “Have a beer! On me!”

“I would rather eat an asp,” Lubov snarled. 

“I don’t have any of those, but I do have some schnitzel.” 

Stephen reached into his library and pulled out a small book. Thinking as he read, he paced for a few moments, turning pages. “I have it!” He clapped the book shut and it disappeared back into his library. 

In its place, he produced a small knife. “My dear Loki, I shall need a lock of your hair.” 

Lubov tightened both hands around the grip of his sword. 

“Of course,” Loki said, smiling, even as he struggled to get free. “Anything to be helpful. You know how much I like to help!”

Stephen tried not to grind his teeth. He sliced a bit of hair free and dropped it into the small cauldron he’d summoned. There wasn’t that much to the counter spell. Very quickly he poured the black liquid into a rinsed and empty beer bottle. 

“How does it work,” Lubov asked, now much more interested in Stephen’s magic 

“Now might not be the best time to discuss magic, but feel free to drop by my house sometime,” he said while handing him a business card. “As for this, if you have her sand, just set this bottle in the remains and she should be as she was. I’m terribly sorry for any harm this disreputable person has caused you.” 

“Thank you so much,” Lubov roared throwing his arms around Stephen and hugging him right off his feet. Levi, the levitating cape, did it’s best to push the huge old Russian back. “You have no idea how much this means to me! I am forever in your debt! Julia is the light of all goodness!”  
“Indeed she is,” Loki said, nearly slipped free of his restraints. 

“I will do this thing now!” Lubov nearly shouted. He started to pull small leather bags of sand from pockets that had not even seemed like pockets. 

Stephen took a step back, eyes wide. 

Loki kicked him and Stephen turned to look at him. “Is it going to work,” Loki mouthed silently

Stephen’s expression went from ‘of course’ to ‘probably’ to ‘maybe’ in about a heartbeat. 

“Perhaps we should run,” Loki mouthed, eyes wide and expectant. 

Then the spell kicked in with a nasty backwards lightening growl and cracking that went down the length of the bar, a black malignant crack headed straight for Loki’s peanut bowl. 

“Now,” Loki squeaked and Stephen released the restraints, jerking him back up right just as the black crack rose up like a very angry little shadow and tore the bowl of peanuts into confetti. 

Half a moment later, a very Rubenesque blonde woman, naked as Eve before the fruit sat on the edge of the bar. Pink lips, blue eyes, and she sat there smiling at the great mountain of half dead necromancer as if he were Apollo. He threw his cloak around her and pulled her into his arms. 

“You will get that vermin off our world?”

“I always keep my word,” Stephen said. 

“You better give chase then, because he just disappeared. You have our gratitude.” Lubov bowed slightly, grabbed his sword free of the concrete and carried his wife away. 

Stephen pressed a hand to his forehead. “Loki! You come back here!” 

Loki clearly had nothing more to say, for once, and somewhere else to be!


End file.
